In ancient times, the troll Peikko lived on earth. Nobody knew where he came from. Some said that Peikko was the same ruler of nature, like the mistress of the sea Vellamo, like the forest king Tapio, others believed that Peikko was an ordinary man, only he lived in the forest. In short, no one could really say anything about him. They knew one thing: Peikko was much taller and stronger than the tallest men, his face was overgrown, his hair was shaggy, his arms and legs were thick, as if hewn from a log.
Peikko was old, rich and stupid. That's what they say.
As soon as Peikko came to the village, the villagers would definitely make fun of him, and the first among them all was young Matti.
So one day Peikko came to the village and let’s argue with Matti that he will outlast him in the steam room, any steam will withstand. Well, we flooded the bathhouse and went to take a steam bath.
And Matti cut a hole in the wall of the bathhouse and quietly leaned out into the street.
Peikko knows how to heat the stones, and when he does, he pours boiling water over them. The stove hisses like a hundred cats, and Mattie keeps asking for more parka and more. What about him? He stands by the hole in the wall and breathes in fresh air!
Peikko couldn’t stand the heat in the steam room and ran out into the street and stuck a burning brand under the bathhouse. The bathhouse caught fire and immediately burned to the ground; one stove stood untouched.
Meanwhile, Matti climbed out through the hole into the yard and escaped the fire.
The next day Matti went with the villagers to look at the fire, and there was Peikko.
— Did you have a good steam last night? - Peikko gets angry.
- Which one is it! — Matti grinned. “You heated the bathhouse poorly, you didn’t serve any steam at all, I was cold.”
Another time Matti and Peikko met in winter and fought again.
“It’s a painfully bitter winter,” Peikko muttered.
- Really? - Matti was surprised.
- Certainly! In such frost, no work will go well.
- Here's more! There is no frost that I cannot endure. We bet?
- I bet! - Peikko was delighted, and he himself sent an icy frost and a icy wind onto Matti.
Matti clenched his teeth and swung the ax - the logs just bounced off the log!
Peikko's teeth are missing and he doesn't know how to protect himself from the cold.
“Isn’t it too cold today?” - asks.
“Maybe it’s strong, but the wind warms it up quite a bit,” Matti cheated.
Peikko was surprised: why would Matti be warm?
Peikko stopped the wind, stopped the frost, they were still of no use. Again Matti defeated him.
Then Peikko persuaded Matti to compete in jumps to see who would go deeper into the ground. Matti agreed: let’s jump off a cliff, he says. And at night he dug a deep hole at the foot of the mountain, filled it with brushwood and covered it with pine needles.
We got up on the edge of a cliff this morning and are about to start jumping. Peikko jumped and sank into the ground up to his knees. Matti jumped - he was gone, and his head was not visible. In surprise, Peikko opened his mouth, with his mouth open, and stood there until Matti crawled out of the hole.
“Yes, you’re obviously a sorcerer,” Peikko sighed, “how else did you manage to crash into the ground?”
“I’m not a sorcerer,” replied Matti, “but a real man, and much smarter and more dexterous than you.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru